


This Must Be The Place

by sidnihoudini



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Codependency, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Jumping Timeline, M/M, Men who can't get their shit together, Multi, New York City, Other, POV Outsider, Relationship History, circular storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 04:22:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: Jenny isn’t part of the inner circle, but she cobbles together what must have happened. Sebastian is, potentially, gone.Ok a question for ushe texts Max.Shoot.Hypothetically like HYPOTHETICALLY what would u do if you found a very big very strong very handsome horse in the woods but he is alone and sad when you meet him and then youKnow him and then he gets more alone and sad but still very strong?Very confident in my opinion that I would find another strong and handsome horse to keep him company. Second horse does not have to be as big but is probably still preferred.Ok ok OK I can work w this. What would u do if sad horse was very unreceptive to ANY love like sometimes will not make eye contact w u despite your softest kindest quietest voice?Don’t ride the horse.Are you SURE.Yes.





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> HI. Holy shit it feels like I’ve been writing this story for ten years.
> 
> I started to plan for and write this guy pretty soon after finishing [To Wong Foo and Together, Together with Genie](https://archiveofourown.org/series/908940) back in late 2017/early 2018. My main goal (and challenge) for this story was to write a Chris and Seb that weren’t like the ones I’ve written in [Fork and Knife](https://archiveofourown.org/series/471925) or To Wong Foo, despite operating in the same real-life based timeline. I wanted to challenge myself with the way I saw them, and the way I had been characterizing them up until this point.
> 
> This story takes a lot of real people (obviously), real life events, and real timelines into account. It also jumps between POVs of multiple real people, and includes more relationships than just Chris/Seb, even though it very much is a Chris-and-Seb story. It has a happy Evanstan ending, but if the idea of Chris and Seb ever being in a relationship with people who are not each other is not your thing, this is likely not the story for you.
> 
> I’m really, really proud of this story, and I hope you like it, too :)
> 
> PS:
> 
> The “now” portion of the story takes place right before the Lobby Hero premiere in March 2018.

NOW-

“Well, this sounds suspicious,” Scarlett smirks, squinting. “But continue.”

*

“Hold on. Back the fuck up.” Mackie wipes his mouth with a tiny napkin. “You better say that to me again, and slower this time, man.”

*

“Wowww, Evans. How long have you been practicing that for?” She’s joking around, lips twisting into a little smile as she crosses her arms and tosses her hair out of her eyes. “I’m gonna owe Mack a hundred bucks.”

*

“I am not getting involved,” Mackie explains. He holds up one hand. “BUT-”

*

“If you guys are finally going to fuck,” Scarlett requests, “Can you find a flat surface and get it over with?”


	2. II.

SINGAPORE  
TWO YEARS AGO-

They’ve been on top of one another all day.

Chris smiles when they accidentally catch each other’s eye from across the room. They’re in a big glossy white box perched above the bay, full of industry people and Marvel handlers. Seb returns the smile, half of his mouth lifting up into a crooked grin.

At the head of the conference table, Kate, their appointed handler for the day, says, “Okay, flip. You should be on page three.”

He raises his eyebrows at Seb - _you look away first_ \- and silently cracks up when Seb squints back, confused. Seb glances over at Kate, and then back to Chris, and then realizes what’s actually going on, and looks down at his page.

Chris turns his smile down to the table and rubs at the back of his neck. It’s all flushed, hot, like a kid with a crush.

The meeting lasts forever - for as long as six double sided pages, plus translator time - and then it’s over, and Chris is still sitting there, zoned out and watching Seb from his seat at the table.

“Tired?” Seb mouths, tilting his head to the side. He pouts.

Chris’s eyes drift closed; so tired. He lets gravity take the weight of his head off his shoulders, and flops forward in a nod. 

“Y'all are gonna be too much today,” Mackie supplies. He clacks the edge of his papers against the table. Beside him, Joe chuckles. Chris opens his eyes. “I can feel it.”

*

Chris is smoking and checking his messages in-between interviews when Seb ducks out to find him.

He hears a, “Hey,” and looks up from his phone. There’s Seb, walking across the concrete slabbed patio, smiling and tucking his hair back behind his ears as the wind catches it. “I figured this is where you’d be.”

“Here I am,” Chris says, squinting and ashing his cigarette.

Seb gives him another smile now that they’re closer. It’s sweeter, intended for no one else.

The muscles in Chris’s jaw tighten; _pull yourself together._ Sometimes Seb just _did that;_ looked at Chris like he was the only person on earth who felt the same way about anything that ever mattered.

When Seb looked at him like that, the whole world narrowed to a pinprick. Sunshine through a pinhole.

Sometimes Chris wishes he’d never met Seb at all.

“Man, you really get a sense of how high up we are from here, huh?” Seb asks. He steps right up to the railing, elbow brushing against Chris’s side as he moves.

Chris watches his profile, the way his hair blows everywhere and gets stuck in his eyelashes.

“Reminds me of Berlin,” he says quietly, resting his elbows beside Seb’s. “Being up on a string.”

Laughing, Seb peers into the distance; the blue water and the man-made greenspace. 

He wrinkles up his face, considering a thought, and then looks at Chris and asks, “Do you miss it? The… I don’t know. Not the strings. All of it?” He pauses and licks his lips. “Sometimes I think I miss it.”

Life in a snowglobe. A handcrafted world that was engineered to make everything easier for the two of them. _Did he want to live there forever?_ Berlin, Leipzig, Atlanta: all places Chris loved and hated in equal measure; the cities where he’d loved Seb, and the ones he’d been denied him.

Yeah. He missed the days they spent dangling together on strings. You could say that.

This part of the job - the movie release, the tour, the tailend of everything - that’s when the bubble finally, permanently, popped.

“Sure I do.” Chris braces himself, puts out his cigarette. He eeks a smile. “But I’ll have fond memories of those gigantic shoulders of yours forever, sunshine.”

The bridge of Seb’s nose wrinkles up as he laughs.

“Not me.” Together, they walk back to the doors Seb came out of. On the other side of the glass, two men in black lurk, like they’re protecting the President and First Lady of something great. “I don’t miss those things at all.”


	3. III.

Two things happened on the day Scarlett met Sebastian:

The big boys held their clandestine script reading for the then untitled second Cap movie, and,

She filled in the gaping - truly _GAPING_ \- holes that punctuated her hard-earned knowledge of Chris’s personal life. It was like turning the light on.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” had been Sebastian’s running joke that weekend. He’d raise his eyebrows and earnestly exclaim, “I’m already dead!”

Scarlett spent the whole table read volleying her gaze back and forth between them like she was watching a tennis match, because she’d known Chris Evans for ten years at that point, but she’d never met Sebastian’s Chris Evans before.

And he was new here.

“You’re _happy,”_ she accused, nose wrinkling up as she assaulted Chris during a smoke break.

Chris, giggly and dumb from being in Sebastian’s immediate orbit, reached out and tugged on the short pieces of hair that fell at her cheekbones.

“And you’re annoying!” He laughed again, and she echo laughed back, because it was new.

Then he kept playing with her hair, and she smacked his hand away with an amused, “Stop.”

She didn’t know how he had successfully _kept it from her_ for so long. Chris was practically a moony teenager whenever he looked in Sebastian’s direction. The way they gazed at each other from across the room was about as subtle as a high school production of Romeo and Juliet.

The whole day she was distracted by it, and god help her if any of the execs in the room assumed she had a crush on Chris Evans when, in reality, she’d just never seen that starry-eyed look on his face before. By the time the table had reached the end of the script - minus a handful of pages that had been redacted, because that’s just what working for Marvel was like - Scarlett was frowning.

“If you do this,” she murmured at him, with Sebastian standing ten feet away flanked by a Russo on each side, “You better be sure about it.”

Because she knew Chris; he wasn’t sure about anything he did. Things happened to him, and he either endured them or enjoyed them, and then he took a step forward, and waited for another round.

But that day he was extra charming, just from being in Sebastian’s space.

“I am sure.” His voice was serious, but gentle. “And I’m not going to hurt him.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about,” Scarlett murmured back, eyeing Sebastian across the room, and she’d been right, because it was only three weeks later that she found out Sebastian was already dating somebody else.

*

ATLANTA  
SEVEN MONTHS AGO-

In the middle of dinner, Scarlett gets a text from Chris, and that’s how the conversation starts.

“Singapore. Now that- that was some shit,” Mackie shakes his head. “Not cool.”

The two of them go out for dinner a lot, because really, who wants to hang out with Chris or Seb.

“So I heard.” Scarlett arches one freshly toned eyebrow, and reaches across their tiny, wobbly table to snag a piece of crab roll. “Chris was pretty broken up afterwards.”

That was a long week. It started with Chris sleeping in her guestroom while he kicked around Manhattan, waiting for Sebastian to come out of the woodwork and lick his wounds, and it ended with the crash-bang of a couple bourbon sours when he realized that wasn’t in the cards.

Mackie gives her a look. “Five years of momentum, dead in the water.”

“Right? Jesus.” Her words come out muffled because she’s talking with a full mouth; after a few pointed chews, she swallows and rolls her eyes. “What’s their deal, seriously? How hard is it to tell someone you have feelings for them?”

She watches as Mackie goes for the second piece of crab roll.

“Don’t ask me, man.” He snags the biggest one. “I don’t ask questions. I learned real quick.”

“Well, they’re both single,” Scarlett says, reaching for her tiny bowl of tea. “The time us upon us.”

She alternates between sucking seaweed out of her front teeth, and watching Mackie pick over the remnants of their two-man platter.

“I know both of them better than a lot of people around here,” Mackie eventually says, dropping one piece of spicy tuna on his plate, and then reaching for another. “But I still feel like I’ve never met either of them before.”

Scarlett snorts. “Yeah, they do that. They’re good at it, too.”

“That’s why Sebastian’s hair is so high,” Mackie says with a straight face. “It’s where he keeps his secrets.”

Laughing, Scarlett reaches for a piece of salmon, and adds a flat, “Not Chris, though.”


	4. IV.

MANHATTAN  
FIVE MONTHS AGO-

“Oh, mon dieu! I didn’t realize you had taken a new American wife -- and right underneath my nose!”

Sebastian grins and briefly glances away from his phone.

“It isn’t like that,” he says, alternating between typing with just his thumb, and waiting for the little “...” to bloop as he keeps Xavier at an arm’s length, lazily bonking his hand away whenever he tries to reach for Sebastian’s phone.

When Xavier makes a face, Sebastian makes the same one back.

“Show me a photo of his dick.” The request is accompanied by a sharp, dirty smile. Xavier arches one dark eyebrow up, and leans in. “How small is his waist, _really?”_

Sebastian closes the distance, and smacks a kiss to his mouth.

“It really isn’t like that,” he maintains. When Xavier’s gaze drifts back to Sebastian’s iPhone, Seb dims the screen with a _click._

Xavier gives him a look. “This is too much foreplay to not have a single cock involved.”

“You keep me covered in cock,” Sebastian shoots back, heaving himself out of bed. On his way up, he smacks Xavier’s bare leg with a cheeky grin. He carries Chris in shards, always. Some of that weight has been afflicted; other pieces, appropriated. When he misses Chris most, he is obvious about it, and this bouncy, aw-shucks act wouldn’t make it past anyone who knew both of them.

Sebastian clears his throat. At the thought of Chris, he can’t help but say, “Me and him, we weren’t anything.”

In bed, Xavier lounges against the white linen.

“You’re very protective of him, for someone you aren’t part of anything with.” He stretches for his cigarettes; the smell isn’t the same, but cigarette smoke still reminds him of Chris.

Sebastian stoops over the bed, smirking.

“And you’re pretty nosy for someone I met last month,” he teases, as Xavier reaches up and twists Sebastian’s hair around his fingers. They watch each other for a long moment. Sebastian relents. “Maybe we could have been together, but our timing was never right.”

Xavier’s hand moves from the top of his head, and slides over his stubbly cheek.

“Well, as long as you aren’t married,” he jokes, blowing smoke into the air.

The shift in tone relieves Sebastian; his shoulders relax, and he turns back into himself again. He leans down so they can kiss.

“I’m not married,” Sebastian murmurs, making Xavier laugh. “Unless this is a proposition.”

Xavier mouths, “I don’t think so,” and Sebastian cracks up again.

They fuck right there; fun, rough, and brand new. And if there was anyone who could have distracted Sebastian off the track he and Chris have painstakingly built together, brick by bruised brick - it would have been Xavier.

*

Sebastian meets up with a friend later that night.

“You look smug,” Allison says. She smirks from behind her martini. “What’s the story with that?”

Sebastian grins back as he gets settled in his side of the booth. He’s a little tipsy, is what the story is. He and Xavier went out for drinks after fucking and before going their separate ways for the night; anything on his face reading “smug” is directly related to him.

“I’m just a happy boy,” he shrugs, adjusting his collar, slanting back, getting comfortable. He raises his eyebrows and wonders if he should hide his hickey in this low-light. “What can I say?”

“You can give me the whole story, you hairy little twink,” Allison tells him, in that dry, low voice of hers, and Sebastian throws his head back and laughs so loud the couple at the next table look over.

*

The drunk walk home is punctuated with do not walk signs and stopping to untangle his earbuds.

“Jesus,” he grumbles to himself, drunkenly trying to sort out the mess he pulled out of his pocket.

He knots his eyebrows, and sways a little on his feet. Delicate. He’s gotta be caref-

This sucks. Sebastian pinches one eye closed. Chris would be able to fix these earbuds.

He starts walking again, slowly this time, head bowed as he works on his mess.

It isn’t until 54th and Park that he manages to liberate them. He tucks one bud into each year and continues on, walking, walking, walking.

*

After the Russos called a wrap on Bucky in ATL, Chris started _doing it_ again.

The edginess. The nervous flippancy; the inconsistent way he would spin between genuine happiness and pale faced, sallow terror. Seb saw it all. He watched as Chris tried to pull back, and he watched as, no matter how hard Chris struggled against the chain, he got absolutely nowhere.

He was bound to Seb and somehow he hadn’t figured that out yet.

Seb mulled it over for days. They weren’t very good at talking about the way they felt about each other, and Chris had been looking particularly terrified that he couldn’t figure out how to un-build the way they’d structured their Atlanta days and nights around each other. Seb didn’t know what to say, either, and he hated that look on Chris’s face. He wasn’t ready for the elastic to snap back like it always did; he hadn’t even braced himself for the sting yet.

So he grit his teeth and packed his bag and stayed with Chris while Paul crashed at the shitty, white-walled apartment he’d rented for himself fifteen minutes away -- back when he’d first fortified his _we tried it in Singapore and now we don’t have to try it again plan._

In-between the dog barking at every police siren that went by, and Jenny coming home for the night to Auntie Chris’s Giant Empty Mansion for Wayward Georgia Strays, Seb dropped the news about returning to New York.

Their conversation had bumbled along, in fits and starts like it always did, until Seb sat there feeling a lot like the Grinch trying to carry off the Christmas tree. _There’s a light on this tree that won’t light on one side. I’m taking it home to my workshop, my dear: I’ll fix it up there, and I’ll bring it back here._

Sometimes that’s just what having a conversation with Chris was like.

“He’s doing that thing he does,” Scarlett pretend whispers, as they both lift weights in front of the floor to ceiling mirrors at the gym. Seb likes it when she comes; it means no one is allowed to livestream on Instagram. “It drives me nuts.”

Seb doesn’t care that Chris is doing that thing: being scared, making bad choices.

Chris’s whole life is an overthought series of bad choices, and Seb knows he’s one of them, too.

“He drives everyone crazy,” he agrees, amicable. Then he cringes as he lifts the weight up and over his head, arm muscles bulging- because Chris always pulled back. Chris always took moments away from him. Seb looks at his reflection in the mirror; a thousand little pieces of a full-grown man. “I’m happy right now. Let me fuck my twink in peace.”

Scarlett cackles so abruptly she almost drops her dumbbell. Then she eyes him, eyes twinkly and curious, and asks, “So does Chris know?”

“I haven’t told him.” Seb drops his weights, breath coming hard and sharp, and steps back to shake the tightness out of his forearms. He bites back a cringe. “We don’t talk about that stuff.”

She drops her weight, and gives him a look. “Don’t let him find out by himself.”

“It’s not serious,” Seb says at first, but then reconsiders. “It’s not serious yet.”

Scarlett rolls her eyes and reaches forward to jab a finger in his throat before he even realizes what’s happening.

“Nice hickey,” she reviews. Seb makes a surprised OW! sound, and staggers back a step. “If mother sees that, she won’t be happy.”

Laughing, Seb covers the spot with one hand, and gives her a gentle shove with the other.

“Maybe once the holidays are over.” He and Chris probably won’t see each other until then, anyways. If he and Xavier are still seeing each other, maybe… “I don’t have to tell him everything that’s ever happened.” Scarlett gives him a dry look. He pauses, glances away, and then tries to sound very uninterested as he asks, “Is Jenny still living with him?”

Scarlett picks up a smaller weight, and makes hard eye contact in the mirror. “It’s like a summer vacation that never stops,” she says in a salty voice.

“Summer vacations are fun,” he shoots back, making her laugh. “And they have to end sometime.”

She cackles again, out of breath this time, and runs through the remainder of her reps. When she’s done, she sits down on the edge of the pull-bar machine and squints at him through the sweat in her eyes. 

“Chris said you bumped into her before he could introduce you to each other,” she says, crackling her plastic water bottle.

Seb doesn’t answer until he’s finished his set. He steps back, and lets all 150lbs bounce against the mat.

“She’s nice,” he agrees, panting. He wipes his face off and adds, “I didn’t know he told you about that.”

Scarlett smiles sweetly. 

“He didn’t say it was during one of your weird, no-sex sleepovers. I worked that part out myself.”

He laughs again, and breathes out a, “Great.”

There’s a lull in conversation as Seb racks his weights and reaches for his towel. The whole world disappears as he wipes it over his face, and scrubs the sweat out of his hair.

“He gets pretty flighty when he gets nervous, huh?” she asks, as they leave the mat area.

Seb huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you could say that.”

Then they come to their fork in the road: two doors, one that leads to the women’s locker room, and a second that swings into the men’s. Scarlett presses her lips together and looks at him seriously. It’s been a while since he’s been face to face with that frown.

“You know he’d be perfectly content to carve out a mountainside and live in it like a mole person,” she says.

Out of everything Seb was expecting to hear, that wasn’t it. He laughs, genuinely surprised, and replies, “Believe me, I’m counting down the days until he disappears into the woods and I never have to see him again.”

“Do you really think he’d do that without at least attempting to drag you into his cave?”

A smile jerks across Seb’s face, sudden, but he tries to hide it. She grimaces at his reaction.

“I’m an independent woman,” he jokes, but he’s still fighting back the way his face lights up at the idea of playing house in a log cabin in the woods. “I’m nobody’s sure thing.”

To demonstrate, he snaps his sweat towel.

Scarlett watches him placidly and then rolls her eyes.

“One day you’re gonna accidentally touch weenies, you know,” she mutters, turning to push the locker room door open.

He can’t help but call after her, “Maybe it won’t be accidental!”


	5. V.

ATLANTA  
FIVE MONTHS AGO

OKAY.

SO, basically Jenny definitely put it together like right away that Chris had some probably penis related skeletons in his closet. That felt like a no-brainer, correct? Maybe some sexy horny secrets?

But like she didn’t think this guy was involved.

“Uhhh, wuh- hi?” she questions, face wrinkling up. She’s tucked into the corner of Chris’s gigantic living room couch, folded up like a baby pretzel with a cereal bowl sized mug of coffee in her hands.

 _That’s Sebastian,_ her brain says. She stares at him like he’s a teeny tiny Mona Lisa behind a bulletproof glass panel.

Her mouth opens, and she wants to say more, but he beats her to it. He smiles, “Hi, morning.”

“Good morning,” she babbles back, floored at how sleepy and puffy he is, and he looked so fulfilled before he caught her sitting there, but now that fulfillment is a secret because he’s reined the sparkliness in his eyes back out of view. All of a sudden her brain jumps the track and demands STATE THE NATURE OF YOUR BUSINESS HERE and she blurts out, “Oh! I’m just the roommate!”

Sebastian’s mouth, still pulled open into a smile, freezes that way, and he looks at her, maybe a little amused, and says, “I got that.”

She just didn’t want any romantic comedy misunderstandings, is all. Jenny offers up an awkward smile, and then lurches forward, coffee mug clanking against the coffee table as she stretches her free hand out and offers, “I’m Jenny,” and then, “You’re Sebastian.”

They shake hands over a stack of magazines and the plate Jenny recently ate a waffle off of.

“Nice to meet you,” Sebastian says. “I feel like I know you already. Chris has a lot of stories.”

Oh god she hopes not the one where she barfed and then tried to catch it with her hands.

“Oh no,” she also says out loud, face wrinkling up as she tries to shrink away. Sebastian laughs again, and straightens one of the throw pillows on what is usually Chris’s side of the couch. “Oh, Sebastian. That sounds probably very embarrassing for me, oh god.”

He wipes some sleep out of his eye and grins. “They’re… charming.”

“Oh no!!” She falls over, curling up into a ball and trying to bury herself under a quilt.

Sebastian only sticks around long enough to call an Uber and steal a Muscle Milk out of the fridge. When he leaves, the weather sealing on the door suctioning behind him, Jenny bounces across the room and peers between the curtains.

She doesn’t get to see much. The only thing Sebastian does is walk down the stone path, head bowed as he shakes and then unscrews the lid on his drink. There’s a black BMW waiting at the curb, and when he gets close, he waves at the driver before opening the back door for himself.

Jenny stands, fingers between the curtain folds, and watches until Sebastian’s car is out of sight.

*

She’s known Chris for two and a half years. For the first couple weeks, she thought, maybe.

On paper he was great: funny, smart enough, handsome, charming in an aw-shucks routine kind of way. Up close he was a mess, but from like, two, three steps back, man. A real piece of art. The same night she’d signed her divorce papers, she’d been drunk, and tried to kiss him.

“Woah,” was all he’d said, stunned and not moving away, but not moving closer, either.

Face crumpling up, she’d hung over his lap, a sad dog, and managed a quiet, “Sorry...”

“It’s fine,” Chris said, like it was no skin off his back, like this was just something women did around him, and he had come to terms with that. He patted her on the shoulder tenderly with one hand, and continued to pick from the bag of potato chips they were sharing with the other.

Jenny became comfortable with being his friend, and wondered if maybe, one day, she could sneak in under the wire.

*

SAVANNAH  
THREE YEARS AGO

When Chris has a few too many, he loosens his purse strings a little.

This is what Jenny is learning.

Every time she’s tried to needle a relationship status out of him, he’s out-maneuvered her -- effortlessly. Over the course of their steamy - but platonic - Savannah nights, Jenny has gone into it all: the wet mouth on the first boy she kissed, the weird dick on the dude she dated in college, her divorce, and the 1 comedian and 1 actor she’s fucked since.

Chris laughed in all the places where he was supposed to laugh. He commiserated over pubes in teeth, and awkward first dates -- but every time there was a lull between stories, he’d just laugh and sigh, “That sucks, man,” and reach for his drink.

He never contributed his own stories, but Jenny had never met a man who didn’t want to share his conquests in detail.

Whenever she lobbed the ball back at him -- _okay, your turn now_ \-- he stopped playing the game, and it took her a very long time to learn why.

After two beers, one shot of tequila, and two whiskey sours, there it was:

Sebastian.

“Wait!” The ice cubes in their drinks clink together as Jenny watches Chris unexpectedly jerk up out of his chair. She laughs, and tries to steady her rum and coke. “What are you doing!”

He’s already on his feet, jean dick pressed against the edge of the table and a squinty, confused expression on his face. He peers at something happening on the other side of the room. Jenny watches his hand flex halfway up into a wave, and then stop.

“I thought I saw Sebastian,” Chris explains, which explains nothing.

Their feet bump together underneath the table as he sits back down. Jenny doesn’t know how seriously she should be taking this, so she asks, “Like… the lobster?”

Chris reaches for his drink and takes a treacherously long gulp. Jenny watches, mouth open.

“My friend,” he finally winces out, breathless from the alcohol. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It kinda seems like it is.” She’s feeling a little baffled. His cheeks are splotchy and pink.

When he picks up the drink menu and tries to hide behind it, Jenny shuffles around, shifting in her seat until she can look at the other side of the restaurant. She has no idea who Chris was looking at; whoever caught his eye has settled into the biosphere of Italian dining seamlessly.

“Sebastian,” Jenny says, just to try it out. Maybe this is a Beetlejuice situation?

Chris shakes his head and clears his throat. “Just someone I work with.”

“Right,” she agrees, but wow, that’s a weird expression on his face.

*

ATLANTA   
FOUR MONTHS AGO

Chris catches her taking a selfie with the cardboard cutout of Jack Nicholson that recently appeared in the dining room. 

“Don’t post that,” is all he says, looking nervous. 

*

She isn’t part of the inner circle, but she cobbles together what must have happened. Sebastian is, potentially, gone.

 _Ok a question for u_ she texts Max. 

_Shoot._

_Hypothetically like HYPOTHETICALLY what would u do if you found a very big very strong very handsome horse in the woods but he is alone and sad when you meet him and then you  
Know him and then he gets more alone and sad but still very strong?_

_Very confident in my opinion that I would find another strong and handsome horse to keep him company. Second horse does not have to be as big but is probably still preferred._

_Ok ok OK I can work w this. What would u do if sad horse was very unreceptive to ANY love like sometimes will not make eye contact w u despite your softest kindest quietest voice?_

_Don’t ride the horse._

_Are you SURE._

_Yes._

*

Scarlett doesn’t trust her and Jenny doesn’t know what to do about that.

HONESTLY Scarlett Johansson is very scary and very protective of her male friends. She is very beautiful and very wary of Jenny’s presence, and Jenny very much wants to hide behind Chris but he is very busy with Scarlett.

So Jenny sips her drink and eats some snacks at the food table.

“Yo. Jenny, right?” A voice asks, and when Jenny looks over, food hanging out of her mouth, there’s a handsome black man holding a tiny plate and smiling at her.

Her heart explodes because now she doesn’t have to pretend to look busy so no one realizes she’s here all by herself even though she came with Chris. She smiles with all her teeth and says, “That’s me!!”

“Mackie,” the guy says, effortlessly stopping a baby carrot from rolling off his plate. “You like cigars?”

*

It takes a few weeks for things to go back to normal.

Jenny doesn’t see Sebastian around the house ever again.

*

“Veto.” Jenny pulls apart three gummy bears that are still attached at the sides and feels bad for them. “Too hairy.”

On the other side of the glass patio table, Chris is immediately, deeply, offended. “He’s handsome!”

“Wanting to fuck his wig doesn’t count.” She knows that’s exactly what he was thinking because his face gets all _no_ but also _yes_. Jenny sets her gummy bears to the side so she can pack a bowl. “When I die, you may scalp me. You may take every beautiful, curly hair on my head.”

Chris opens a fresh beer and says diplomatically, “I don’t know about that.”

“Christopher, please.” She brushes her hands together. “If you don’t want a wig, can you please just make me into a merkin?”

His face wrinkles up into a grimace, but he DOES think about it. His eyelashes shift as he watches her hands pack the weed.

“I’m not in charge of your dead body, and I’m definitely not putting your dead hair on my dick,” he finally says.

Jenny reaches for the bong. “You’re not very nice to me when I’m dead.”

“Rick Moranis,” Chris counters.

She cackles. “WHAT? He’s such a dad.” She puts her mouth against the piece, but then pulls back long enough to make eye contact and ask, “You’d fuck a dad like that?”

“I’d fuck a dad,” he confirms, watching as she lights up.

Jenny sits back and tries to hold her breath, but can’t help being impatient and squeezing out, “John Stamos,” even though she’s trying not to breathe. Then Chris starts laughing and she can’t help it, she laugh-coughs on the rest of the smoke and cackles out, “I was a kid and I wanted to fuck John Stamos.”

It’s getting a little dark out, and that makes it extra obvious when Chris’s phone lights up with Sebastian’s face.

Without meaning to, Jenny gives Chris a look.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. He doesn’t reach for the phone.

Sebastian’s twinkly, grinning face stares up at her from the table.

Jenny hands the bong over.

As a thirteen year old girl deep in the throes of puberty, Jenny had maintained a series of passionately worded handwritten diaries that her parents had been kind enough to recently gift back. As she’d read them, sitting alone on her new couch after the divorce, she’d been a little disturbed at how deeply cut-throat teenaged Jenny was.

There was a different kind of love scratched into those pages. The boy she had a crush on in the seventh grade was described in as much painstaking glory as she’d been capable of the time: four notebook lined pages, front and back, with hearts and daisy chains doodled in the margins.

“Can I make an educated guess about your all-time dream dad?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

If she had to hazard an estimate, she’d say, Romanian-

“Nope.” 

Chris turns away from her, enough so he can rest the bong between his knees without banging it against the table, and just like that, Jenny is shut out again.


	6. VI.

LOS ANGELES  
NINE YEARS AGO

“Hi, I’m Sebastian.”

“Chris.”

They shake hands.

Chris offers a tight smile without showing his teeth, and reaches up to tug the brim of his hat down over his eyes. With his head bowed, he tilts his chin towards the front of the room, and awaits further instruction.

“Nervous?” Seb asks. He smiles properly, all his teeth and all his charm. He’s read the same two pages of script 40 times and can’t go back outside to smoke until he returns them.

It seems like a pretty easy gig: one or two mediocre superhero movies to add to his IMDB page.

Seb tilts his head a little, so he can peek in under the brim of Chris’s hat. He offers up a smaller, gentler smile when Chris’s gaze jumps and locks in on him, surprised.

“No.” He reconsiders, shakes his head. “Well. A little.”

He notices the way Chris’s gaze flickers down and then back up his face. He wrinkles his nose up and he asks, “Don’t audition well?”

All he gets is another tight, close mouthed smile from Chris, and then the casting assistant is clapping and calling everyone’s attention back to the front of the room.

*

MANHATTAN  
SEVEN MONTHS AGO

 _Crisse,_ the things Xavier would do to feast on the skeletons in this man’s closet.

“You can tell me,” he offers, cheek smooshed against Sebastian’s gigantic round shoulder.

Sebastian laughs and teases back, “Oh, that’s very kind of you.”

With a forlorn, drawn-out sigh, Xavier stretches dramatically, and drapes himself across the couch like a piece of artwork. When Sebastian grins and looks over at him, Xavier presses the back of his wrist to his forehead like a fainting belle.

“Uh oh,” Sebastian says, going along with it. He shifts around. “Not enough drama to sustain you?”

Xavier immediately breaks character by laughing. He opens his eyes instead of trying to peek through his lashes, and watches as Sebastian crawls up his legs.

“Oh mon chou, you know me so well,” he sighs, pressing back against Sebastian’s weight. He tugs Sebastian’s nipple between his finger and thumb. “I like all of Chris’s tweets, you know. One day we’ll be best friends.”

Sebastian’s mouth curls up and he says, fond, “You’re terrible.”

“Hey hey, it may be the only way I ever get to meet him,” Xavier counters. “I’ll take what I can get.”

There’s a small, sentimental smile on Sebastian’s face. Xavier watches him push back against it, eyebrows knotting as he looks at Xavier seriously and teases, “You just want to feel him up.”

“I wouldn’t say no to an invitation,” Xavier agrees.

“Yeah, well.” Sebastian’s lips turn thin. “You’d have to catch him first.”

It’s always behind his eyes, whatever these two have done to each other. Xavier doesn’t know what it feels like to destroy yourself because you want to love someone else so bad, but it looks painful. Small and private and deeply hard to control.

“Is that why you two have never been together?” he asks.

There goes Sebastian’s tongue again, licking nervously.

“I guess it’s part of it.” He stares at the couch upholstery behind Xavier’s head, lashes shifting against his cheeks. “He and I make sense on paper, but nowhere else.”

Xavier winds his arms around Sebastian’s neck and tugs him down.

“Everything makes sense on paper,” he says, feeling the curve of Sebastian’s ear rest against the hollow of his throat. It’s hot, ashamed. Xavier looks up at the ceiling, and wraps both hands around the back of Sebastian’s head, cradling the curve of his skull and the nape of his neck. “Paper is the easiest thing to burn.”

*

LONDON  
EIGHT YEARS AGO

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sebastian mutters, trying to talk out of the corner of his mouth so the mic doesn’t pick it up.

His whole face is trembling. He can feel his lips wobbling, and tears springing to his eyes.

On his knees on an apple box in front of Seb, Chris bites his lip, and scrunches up his nose.

“I’m sorry,” Chris finally announces, breaking. Sebastian gives in and laughs, posture sagging with relief as he claps his hands together. They laugh at each other as Chris swears, “Fuck, sorry guys!”

It takes a full five minutes to reset. Seb apologizes to the crew members lumbering around where he and Chris are still positioned over their marks. In-between light checks and running boom audio, a makeup lady comes over to pat something on Chris’s face and check Sebastian’s hair.

He and Chris accidentally look at each other over her shoulder, and dissolve into stupid giggles again.

When everything has been reset, Seb clears his throat and puts his serious actor face on. He can stand on a platform and act at Chris’s chin. He’s a professional and he’s done weirder things in his personal life. He’s not going to giggle at Chris staring up at his forehead.

“This isn’t a back-” Sebastian’s voice trembles. “I’m _sorry_ , my god!”

“Cut,” Joe calls, and Seb immediately feels bad even though he’s smiling at Chris. “Take five minutes, guys.”

*

Later that night, Seb is in his hotel room watching dry British comedies he doesn’t really understand when there’s a knock at his door.

“Hey.” Seb’s voice gets gentle and quiet when he sees it’s Chris. “Come in, man. Hi.”

Chris smiles at him, a little bashfully. “Hey, hope you don’t mind me dropping by.”

“Never.”

They shuffle around each other’s space as Chris kicks out of his sneakers and takes his hat off.

“Kinda homesick,” he says, following Seb down the short hallway towards the living area. Seb looks back over his shoulder with a sympathetic expression. “Thought maybe you might wanna order some food and watch something that isn’t about baking or the Queen.”

Seb laughs, charmed, and heads over to the mini fridge. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah, beer is great.” Chris drops down onto Seb’s sofa, and watches as Seb snags two beers from the fridge, cracking them open with the bottle opener on top of the mini bar. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Seb turns off the TV, and gets his laptop out. “I got HBO on this thing.”

Chris gives him a look that makes Seb’s stomach flip.

*

Seb, despite his best efforts, gets a crush on Chris after that.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me, darling,” Hayley says, one night when they’re out for dinner together and he finally breaks and cops to it. “The only one who doesn’t know is Chris.”

He forks at some sausage and gravy. “What do you think he’d do?”

“Chris?” Hayley screws up her whole face, thinking, and then answers, “Absolutely bloody nothing. If you want anything out of that man, you’re going to have to rent an airplane to spell it out in the clouds.”

*

MANHATTAN  
SIX MONTHS AGO

Xavier can always find a photograph he hasn’t seen before on Sebastian’s wall.

There are many faces here that Xavier has never met. Some photos are faded, brown and cream, wilted square shapes that tell the story of Sebastian’s family and childhood. Further down the wall, in newer frames, are photos that Sebastian has taken: a sunset, the sky, landscape after landscape.

Then Sebastian and Scarlett, recent. Sebastian is in an obvious wig, Scarlett with blonde hair, both dressed in tight black with grins on their faces. Sebastian and Mackie, each posing with a cigar, and Mackie’s is lit, but Sebastian’s is not. Xavier grins.

He follows the length of the wall.

Chris. For every photo of someone else, there are two of this big-boobed strange man. He is endearing, even here, in these pictures that have not been alive for such a very long time. Xavier touches the edge of a frame with his thumb: they’re young here, squeezed into a pub booth, twin smiles on their faces and ill-timed red eye correction in their eyes.

It’s the kind of story you can’t just tell someone, Xavier realizes. He looks at another. Sebastian and Chris dressed in suits, arms and armpits and hips and ribs pressed together. Another. Chris and a brunette with curly, thick hair, each one of them holding a tulip and looking serious.

“Who is this?” Xavier asks, looking over his shoulder at Sebastian, who is digging around for cash to tip the delivery guy with.

Sebastian glances up, distracted. “Who?”

“This woman.” Xavier looks at her again; she’s beautiful, full of life. “With the curly hair.”

There’s a subtle recalibration. Sebastian’s hand pauses, and there’s a split second of hesitation before he answers, “She’s my ex-girlfriend. We’re still friends.”

“They were close?” Xavier points to the frame of her and Chris together.

It’s obvious Sebastian is thinking of a specific memory, all of a sudden.

He smirks and replies, “Yeah, they made it work.”

*

LONDON  
SUMMER 2010

“You’re really not seeing anyone right now? Not even a little bit?!” Hayley asks.

Chris, flushed all the way down his neck, holds up his hands. “I don’t have any time! C’mon!”

“Hmm.” She eyes him a little. “I don’t think I believe that. What’s your real reason? Mummy doesn’t approve of anyone you’ve brought home, then?”

Sebastian cackles with such glee that a few pieces of Bucky’s war-era hair fall onto his forehead.

“Why do you always pick on me?” Chris asks, laughing and sadly tugging at the tiny napkin stuck under his drink. At the exact same moment, he looks up, and he and Sebastian catch each other’s gaze across the pub table. Sebastian’s smirk turns genuine so fast glass breaks. “You never say these things to Seb!”

“My darling Sebastian is a normal boy who I’m sure has lots of sex with lots of people. Isn’t that right, Sebastian? We’ve got a little nun over here.”

Laughing, Sebastian tries to catch his stubby drink straw with his tongue. After he snags it and gets a good sip, cheeks hollowing out, he sets one hand on the table and says, “I’m sure Chris is…” but then trails off, unable to say it, and Hayley starts cackling. “Fucking… lots of… girls?”

“Oh my god,” Chris groans, laughing, bright red, both hands over his face.

“Look at him,” Hayley continues, voice low. She nods between Chris, who is trying to slide under the table but can’t get his shoulders low enough, and Sebastian, who is chewing on his straw and laughing. “That looks like someone who sleeps by himself at night and _likes it_.”

To this day, Sebastian remembers the way Chris laughed and, with a cheesy smile, tried to hide under his napkin.

*

BACK TO MANHATTAN  
FIVE MONTHS AGO

They stumble into December together, but go no further than that.

Love, Xavier thought, was strange. Nothing more than a series of lessons, that good feeling, a soft warm light being turned on in the dark. Love was heavy. The small burdens; the pebbles that Sebastian hid in his pockets but swore weren’t there.

The parts of Xavier that were still teenaged and forever young & dumb produced daydreams of future domesticity, but at a great personal cost.

And Xavier didn’t love anyone enough for that.

As they hug for the last time, Xavier kisses Sebastian’s cheek, and says, “Put a photo of me on your wall.”

“I will,” Sebastian promises.

Xavier gives him a cheeky look. “And call me when you want a new project.”

“I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”

They smile at each other; thanks for the memories. 

“Then I guess I will see you soon,” Xavier smirks.

With that, he smacks Sebastian’s side with his boarding ticket, makes one last funny face, and fades into the bustle of JFK.


	7. VII.

ARIZONA  
FOUR MONTHS AGO

Chris is trying to find his phone when he hears the door creak open.

Because Seb is a nut who likes to work too much, he’s here straight from the airport, luggage in tow and hat tugged low over his eyes. Chris rolled in last night at a comfortable hour. He had a nice meal in his hotel room, a shower before he settled in to read what was happening on Twitter, and-

“Hey,” Seb grins, and the whole room narrows to a pinprick.

All Chris gets is one baffled moment to wonder _what makes you so special?_ before Seb is across the room, in his arms, and Chris is murmuring, “Hey, sunshine,” into the fabric of his collar.

“Where’s Mackie at?” Seb asks as they separate.

It’s difficult, taking a step back with all of Seb right there. They end up holding onto each other’s sleeves, an arm’s length apart, until Chris finally breaks and clears his throat.

“You just missed him, he went to get coffee.” But then he can’t help reaching out to grab Seb’s shoulder again. His hand slopes down to the narrowest part, where he can squeeze. “Daddy had a rough night.”

Seb laughs, genuinely surprised and tickled by Chris’s joke. Then he counters, “That bad, huh? Should I ask how mommy’s doing?”

“She got a full nine hours, and a morning alone in the hotel gym,” Chris smiles.

There Seb goes, laughing again. 

“Oh, that must be what’s got you looking particularly well-rested today,” he smirks, talking like he’s got marbles in his mouth.

Chris grins back. “Slept like a baby.”

*

LEIPZIG  
THREE YEARS AGO

After the wrap party, Sebastian watches Chris head back to the hotel alone.

It isn’t an unusual way to end a night out.

Margarita is in the bathtub when he finally gives in and makes his way out of the hotel, too interested in knowing what Chris is getting up to alone to stay in one place for much longer.

He adjusts the hat on his head as he lurks along the dimmed length of the hallway; the booze made him sweaty and flushed, and so he tugs at the fabric of his t-shirt as he walks, hair damp and stuck to the nape of his neck.

When he gets to Chris’s hotel room door, he knocks and calls out, “It’s me.”

The door swings open almost instantly, and then there’s Chris in a towel, with his eyebrows raised up to his hairline.

“You okay?” Chris asks, which gets a smile out of Seb.

Seb tucks his hair back under his hat. “Yeah, just wanted some company.”

_Just wanted to keep you company._

“I got room service coming,” Chris explains, letting him in and closing the door again. “Hungry?”

He ate with Margarita an hour ago, but- “I could get some food.”

“You got it,” Chris says.

As Chris putzes around, Seb makes himself comfortable. He lays down on the side of Chris’s bed that hasn’t been slept on yet, and watches as Chris calls the kitchen to add another burger to his - now their - order.

“Fries?” Chris asks, and Seb nods, fingers interlinked over his belly. Chris turns his mouth back to the receiver and adds, “Yes. Okay, thanks. Thank you.”

Seb rummages around in the wrinkled top sheet for the TV remote as Chris hangs up the phone, and disappears back into the steamy bathroom. When Chris returns a few minutes later, now in flannel pants and a shitty old t-shirt from the Target licensed merchandise wall, Seb is still aimlessly flipping through the channels.

As Chris walks around to the other side of the bed, he offers Seb a tentative smile.

“Thanks for dinner,” Seb says. He eyes the way Chris’s back muscles shift and tense under the well worn fabric of his t-shirt as he sits down on the mattress. When he doesn’t answer, Seb frowns and asks, “You alright?”

Chris immediately turns his head and peers over his shoulder. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Oh, yeah.” Seb watches as Chris stares back for a long moment, eyes sharp and blue. “You looked pretty cool in the harness, though.”

That makes Chris laugh, but also crab, “Gotta love those days where you have to showcase your dick to a hundred crew members.” He lays back, and closes his eyes. “Just gotta get through one more day on the wire.”

“One more day,” Seb echoes, pushing himself up onto an elbow and leaning over until he can peer down at Chris’s face. “Maybe they’ll slip you an extra million for your emotional suffering.”

Chris stares up at him, face blank, but eyes soft and tired.

“I wouldn’t be able to do this without you,” he says.

That makes Seb’s chest ache. He offers a little sentimental smile, and whispers back, “I know.”

“Yeah.” Chris knots his eyebrows tight, and rallies himself. “I don’t mean to, uh. Be down, or whatever. I’m just homesick.”

Little pieces of Seb always want to touch Chris, and usually -- usually -- he manages, but the way he has to hold himself back right then feels especially cruel. He chews his lip as he studies Chris’s face. Seb doesn’t know why Chris won’t find someone the way Seb has found someone. 

It drives him crazy, sometimes, knowing that Chris is just wandering around out there, alone, without a-

“Two more weeks,” Chris whispers, as Seb lays back. He stares up at the ceiling in the absence of Seb’s face and clears his throat. “My flight home is on the 23rd. I’m gonna take a fun pill, and sleep the whole time.”

Seb watches Chris’s profile until Chris turns his head, hair rough and noisy against the hotel linen.

“I think, uh-” He thinks he wasn’t ready for Chris to catch him looking like that, and so he stumbles, waffling a little bit. “I think I might take a vacation.” The light in Chris’s eyes flickers, but Seb rallies up an encouraging smile. “I hear France is pretty nice this time of year.”

They both know what Seb means: Margarita and I are going to get lost for a while.

“You can have all of Europe, sunshine,” Chris says, as there’s a polite knock at the door. He rolls his body up, and pats Seb’s leg on his way to his feet. “Just leave some of the east coast for me.”

*

BACK TO ARIZONA

“Knock kno _ooo_ ck,” Mackie calls, shouldering his way into the hotel room.

It’s been a long, long day, and there’s nothing Chris wants more than one of the cold beers Mack has got tucked under his arm. He also wouldn’t mind going to town on the bag of chips that Seb has already cracked open; they laugh at each other when Seb tries to say “hello” with a full mouth and spits crumbs everywhere.

“What you been up to, seabass?” Mackie asks ten minutes later, once they’re situated around the TV and Chris has ordered tonight’s game to his bill. “Last time I saw you, your silly ass was giving out awards.”

Chris turns his head to look at Seb; they’re splitting the tiny hotel-sized couch, and Mackie is in the one arm chair to their left.

“You know.” Seb shrugs and rubs a hand over his pec. “This and that.”

Mackie snorts, “This and that. I see you rubbing shoulders with the big boys, man.”

“Chris isn’t _that_ big,” Seb teases, and then stops to laugh at his own joke. 

Groaning, Mackie reaches to dip his chip, and complains, “Why you always gotta take it there?”

“Take it where?!” 

Chris takes the opportunity to change the subject. He asks Mackie, “How’s your wife been? I didn’t get a chance to see her before Christmas.”

“She good, she good,” Mackie says, even though he’s still giving Seb the stink-eye, and Seb is still giggling to himself. “We were busy last month, man. That schedule was killing me.”

Jeez, Chris hears that. “Don’t have to tell me.”

“You’ve been keeping a low profile. Hasn’t he?” Suddenly Mackie is suspicious. He looks at Seb, but Seb is busy shaking the chip bag around and trying to pick out the good curly ones, so he looks right back at Chris and raises an eyebrow. “You seeing someone?”

Chris’s kneejerk reaction is a popped, “Nope.”

“Is that chick still living with you?” Mackie asks.

Before Chris can say she’s _a co-worker, a friend,_ or _no one,_ Seb pipes up and answers, “Jenny.”

“Seb!” Chris exclaims, betrayed.

Mackie is delighted. “Oooooooh, Jenny!! How’s that going, blondie?”

“It’s not,” Chris says flatly. “She’s practically my sister.”

“Man, I thought you two were playing house!” Mackie cracks open another beer. “When you gonna settle down, dude? Where are these kids you keep talking about?”

Seb laughs at that, but then offers up a stilted, “Mack…”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Chris gets up to retrieve another beer from where Mackie shoved them into the tiny mini fridge. He frowns and cracks it open using the edge of the counter. “Maybe I don’t have time right now.”

Mackie stretches to get a handful of chips, and shrugs, “There’s never a good time, man.”

“Give me seven kids,” Seb jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “Once you get a few going, they can take care of themselves.”

That gets a laugh out of Mackie, gap tooth showing as he throws his head back and agrees, “That’s the way to do it, man!” and then Chris doesn’t know what else to contribute -- he doesn’t want to talk about having kids anymore -- so he stays quiet. After a second, Mackie looks over at Seb, and asks, “What about you, man? What’s new?”

“Not much,” Seb shrugs.

Mackie reaches for the bag of pretzels they haven’t broke into yet.

“I thought you were seeing some new dude on the down-low,” he says-

-and Chris’s belly goes cold.

“Oh. I, uh, I was.” Seb tugs at his earlobe, waffling. He finally settles on, “Friend of a friend.”

Friend of a friend. Friend of a- Scarlett? Chris’s brain goes zinging off into outer space. He and Seb talked a couple of times before Christmas, and Seb didn’t say anything about a friend of a friend. He didn’t say anything about someone new, at all.

He starts to fidget, thumb rubbing at the edge where his wet label is peeling away from the beer bottle glass.

Mackie plays it casual. He stretches for a chip, and asks, “Where’s he at now?”

“I… it just didn’t work out.” Seb looks as baffled as Chris feels inside. His eyes are all big as he tugs at the collar of his black t-shirt, and adds, “Too busy!”

“Wow, that’s a coincidence.” Mackie leans back with a smirk on his face. “Maybe the two of you should get some calendars, or something, man. Start scheduling some time in to live a little.”

“I need some air,” Chris says, and bounces up and over to the balcony in two steps.

*

BACK TO LEIPZIG

“Move closer, or something,” Seb calls, laughing and grimacing at the sun glaring off his phone screen. “Chris! Smile!”

From behind the single tulip stem he’s holding, Chris dramatically crabs back, “I am smiling!” and, beside him, Margarita throws her head back and laughs.

“You could look like you’re having fun,” Seb counters, equally sour. He walks back over to where the two of them are loitering in front of a Dutch monument; the little garden where Margarita stole a yellow tulip for herself, and a pink tulip for Chris.

Chris hands his tulip to Seb, and reaches up to try and block the sun from his eyes. Then he squints and grimaces out a, “I am having fun.”

“Yeah!” Margarita teases, raising an eyebrow in Seb’s direction. “Don’t you know what having fun looks like when you see it?”

That gets a smile out of Chris. He goes into his aw-shucks routine, hands wedged in his pockets as Margarita continues to tease him. They’re just far away enough that Seb can’t make out what she’s saying, but he can tell Chris is grinning helplessly, bright red.

*

BACK TO ARIZONA

They tried to try it, in Singapore, and it was only because Margarita forced their hand.

 _You’re in love with each other,_ she’d told Seb, confident, and then Chris and Seb had fought about it a few days later, Seb angry with him, misplaced emotion, frustration and confusion at Margarita starting to talk about taking a step back from their relationship.

“Fuck,” Chris mutters to himself. 

He chews on the edge of his thumbnail instead of smoking the lit cigarette between his fingers. They never got the momentum to turn that one night into anything. They never had sex -- and it had barely been a date, after all that -- just a quiet dinner together in the restaurant of the hotel lobby.

There was too much pressure, Chris thinks. How was someone supposed to love anyone the way they deserved to be loved with so many people watching? Wasn’t it inevitable, for that kind of thing to eventually fall apart?

He never knew how Margarita learned how to do it. He couldn’t figure it out: how to take a step back like that.

The sound of the balcony door sliding open doesn’t surprise him. Follow, and be followed. Into the dark, around the corner, across the world.

“Hey.”

Chris, distracted, looks back over his shoulder. “Hi.”

“I kept putting it off. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“It’s fine. Don’t- this is stupid, Seb. You don’t have to apologize to me about that.”

“Mackie thought you were gonna ring my bell.”

Chris laughs, softly, and shakes his head as he looks over the parking lot the hotel is positioned above.

“What are we doing? People don’t do this to each other, Seb.”

He remembers what Seb yelled at him that night in Leipzig, when they got into it after Margarita brought the whole thing up. _You can’t just wait for me forever, Chris. That’s too much pressure! It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to you, either._

“Hey,” Seb says quietly. He leans on the same balcony railing, and bumps their elbows together. “I’m right where I want to be.”

*

BACK TO LEIPZIG

Margarita has known men in every shape and size.

Dumb, smart, artistic. Her father, her brother. A few with the personality of a brick. From Russia, from Mexico, from Spain, with love. Men who were lost, men who were lonely, men who were only boys.

Sebastian was the only man she’d ever had to point in the right direction: away from her. And it all started in Leipzig.

She’d heard about Chris, in little bits and pieces. Always _Chris Evans,_ twigs and jewels she’d pick from the ground and snatch up before Sebastian could take them back. If she was the picture book Sebastian loved to show to people -- to flip through the reprinted pages and point out his favorite works of art -- Chris was the ruins. The ancient, irreplaceable heirloom left in the dark.

It made her want to dislike him.

“Hi, wow, nice to meet you,” was the first thing he said, his babbling a jarring accompaniment to the way he shook her hand like he was Captain America. Sebastian looked at him like he was Captain America, too. “I’ve heard a lot about you!”

She was used to being in Sebastian’s orbit -- the natural gravitational pull that came along with breathing the same air he did -- but Chris’s strange, hand-wringing energy threw her. She’d been expecting the Colgate white teeth, the superhero jawline, all the money makers, but she hadn’t been prepared to be so endeared to Chris’s immediate, shaky personality.

They’d met for the very first time at that party, and after that, Chris was always in her shadow- or maybe she was in his.

*

TRIBECA  
ONE WEEK AGO

Chris’s phone vibrates and jitters across his tiny rented kitchenette countertop.

“Hey,” he answers, picking it up without a second thought.


	8. VIII.

New York City has changed Chris’s life, in fits and starts, a thousand times.

He used to party here, back when that was what you did for publicity. He’d roll joints and do lines and hang out with all the pretty party girls who asked him if he’d ever been on _The Hills_ before.

It felt like a hundred years ago, now, but formative years always did.

The first Avengers movie, terrified, and trying not to show it. Dressed in a spangly onesie or a plain khaki pant, nervously tugging on his seams and at his wig. Trying to argue with Joss, but not having a goddamned foot to stand on when it came to holding his ground.

He emailed Seb a couple times during filming, homesick and full of silly nostalgia, and Seb always replied.

A little older, and Chris was trying to carve out a place for himself that wasn’t Steve. He wouldn’t have directed a movie in any city other than New York: he imagined himself falling in love in Manhattan, because sometimes he was stupid and let himself think about the things he knew would break his heart eventually.

Part of him has always belonged here, in a way, because all of it leads back to Seb.

Chris looks down at his phone -- at the unfamiliar address on the screen -- and then up, at the plain, non-descript brick building in front of him. This is theoretically the right place. He checks his watch. And the right time. He reaches for the handle.

On the other side of the door lays a Japanese restaurant, long and narrow and dimly lit. He walks between groups of small tables, nervous, but nobody looks up at the weird guy with the mustache making a beeline for the back of the room.

The hallway, the kitchen, the freezer beside the employee bathrooms. Chris double checks Seb’s message again, and then pushes through the unmarked service door at the end of the hall.

A staircase, well-lit but industrial.

“Alright,” he murmurs to himself, holding the railing as he bounces down the steps.

At the bottom of the stairs there’s another door to go through, and then the floor is nice again, fancy marble with freshly painted baseboard moulding. It’s darker down here, but the red light hanging over the hostess podium is exactly what Seb described in his texts.

“Hi.” He knows he’s out of place - he’s wearing jeans, and a ten year old jacket. “I’m meeting someone.” _I’ve been waiting for him for eight years, and he’s been waiting for me. We’ve been waiting for each other._ “Kramer?”

The host checks her iPad, and then looks up at Chris with a smile. “I’ll show you to your table, Mr. Floyd.”

Chris, feeling oddly nervous, nods and follows her around the corner, into a small, candle-lit bar.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting for a speakeasy, but it’s packed. He has to turn and squeeze as the host leads him along the length of the bar- there’s only an arm’s length to separate the bar stools from the row of tables that line the opposite wall. No one looks up as Chris bustles along.

The packed bar area thins out a little, and the host directs him towards one of two booths at the very, very back of the room.

It’s dark, sure, lit up by candlelight and a couple of 10-watt bulbs hanging loose from the ceiling, but Chris sees him instantly. Sebastian, every terrifying inch of him, sitting there with his new hair and his big eyes and a gigantic, happy grin on his face.

He looks ten years older than Chris ever remembers him, and simultaneously 27 again.

“Hey,” Chris breathes.

Seb smiles even more. “Hi.”

They stare at each other as Chris slides down into the other side of the booth and unzips his puffy winter jacket, awkwardly wiggling an arm out as their host excuses herself, and says someone will be by to take their drink orders soon.

“Wow,” Chris finally manages, looking up at the ceiling, and then back down at Seb. “This place is crazy.”

Seb’s nose wrinkles up. “You like it?”

“I like it.” Chris reaches for his water and tries not to shake. Before the glass makes it all the way up to his mouth, he leans forward a little, and murmurs, “Don’t tell anyone else it’s here. This is just for us.”

Seb laughs again. “Deal.” There’s a pause as he looks at Chris’s mouth. “I like the new look.”

Jeez, Chris could say the same about all of this. Seb looks smart, he’s got on a nice button-down shirt and everything. He starts to smile, and then Seb smiles too, and Chris laughs, and Seb laughs, and it’s giddy, stupid, fantastic. Getting plugged back into the power grid after a very, very long time in the dark.

The last time they were in the same room, they were in front of a hundred people who were waiting for them to kiss.

Chris looks away first, smiling a, “Your hair is so short, jeez. You like it?”

“I do.” Seb immediately tilts his head forward as Chris fidgets with his napkin. “Feel it.”

Unable to stop himself, Chris’s hand jerks up, and he reaches, stretching across the table, to smooth his palm and fingers over the curve of Seb’s skull. He feels the prickly, bristly hair spike up when he brushes his hand in the opposite direction, too.

“It’s great,” is all he can think to say, and then Seb settles back, and a second later, their server introduces herself and takes their drink orders.

*

On Chris’s third round of bourbon sours, things get easier to talk about.

“Margarita wants me to come over for dinner,” he says, checking his watch for the date, and then reaching to snag another one of the truffle fries from their small spread of appetizers. “She said she’d cook me dumplings.”

Seb’s hand freezes for a second, but he recovers. “I didn’t know you guys were still talking.”

“Yeah.” Chris shrugs. “We send each other dog pictures.”

He’s pretty sure she feels bad for him and is trying to be his friend, too, but he’s not gonna talk about that right now. That’s a five drink topic, minimum.

Seb snorts.

“I don’t know about that,” is what he says, diplomatically.

They settle back, staring at each other from across the table. Seb brings a napkin up to wipe at his mouth, and Chris reaches for his drink again as he stares. As Seb drags the napkin back and forth, Chris starts to fidget and tap his fingers against the table top.

“I’m sorry for how I acted in Arizona.” He’s been meaning to say it forever but hadn’t been able to work up the nerve. He almost resorted to sending it via text, but Seb deserved more than that. “I feel like I drag you out of places where you could be happy.”

Seb watches back, eyes warm, but curious. After a long moment, he replies, “You do.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Chris admits, but he does, and it’s every single fantasy he’s created where they end up together and happy. He knots his eyebrows. “I’m going to say something, and it isn’t going to be fair, Seb.”

In the flicker of the candlelight, Seb’s expression tightens, too. “Say it.”

“Try as I might,” Chris starts to say, and at first it comes out valiant and strong, but then he gets caught up in the curtain and it gets hard again, and his belly tangled and nervous. He looks at Seb carefully, cautious. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.”

Seb’s jaw muscle tics.

“You were right,” he manages, voice stilted. “That’s not fair. You can’t want me when you feel like it, and not want anyone else to have me when you don’t-”

Chris opens his mouth to reply, because that isn’t fair, either, but Seb cuts him off again-

“I can’t keep anyone around, Chris.” He lowers his voice and licks the corners of his mouth nervously. “They all leave me, and it’s because of you.”

At that moment, their server comes back.

“Can I get you another round?” she asks.

But they’re still staring at each other from across the table.

Chris manages a, “Just the bill, thanks.”

*

Nobody in Manhattan seems to give a shit that Captain America and The Winter Soldier are walking down the sidewalk together.

At the next _do not walk_ sign, Chris lights a cigarette.

“Jenny didn’t know a thing about me,” Seb says conversationally, right as Chris is taking that first, warm drag. They look at each other. “She didn’t even know I was there.”

Chris blows smoke over his shoulder, confused. “Should I have told her?”

“No,” Seb answers immediately, but then, “I don’t know.” The crosswalk signal chirps, and they start walking again.

On the other side of the street, Chris says, “I can tell her, but she talks a lot.”

That seems to surprise a laugh out of Seb. He throws Chris a look, sharp and private, a glance and a smile and an _oh, you._

When Seb looks at him like that, Chris remembers why he calls him sunshine.

“It’s not that,” Seb explains, voice soft. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.”

Chris smokes his cigarette down to the filter quickly. Seb has got him there.

“Yeah, it is.” And maybe that’s why they’ve never done this before. Why would you be with someone that makes love so hard? Shouldn’t something like that be easy? 

There’s another long stretch of silence- just the sound of scuffing pavement.

“If I said no to all of it...” Seb looks over at him curiously. “What would you do?”

Chris hesitates, mouth hanging open.

The ethical choice isn’t so undeniable when this is what’s on the table. His never-ending quest to be a good man becomes harder- because he doesn’t know what he would do. He identified Seb as everything good and real a very long time ago, and to unmark him now, Chris would have to unbuild parts of himself to get an honest, clean break.

It didn’t make it right, but somewhere back there, in the tiny little animal part of his brain that still liked to kick rocks, Chris knew it was true.

“I’d back off,” he says, but he doesn’t mean it. Of course he doesn’t mean it. “I would, Seb.”

Seb snorts. “You’re lying,” and Chris counters-

“You’d never tell me no-”

-and Seb stops walking.

“You’re sure about that,” he says, and Chris catches himself already two paces ahead by the time he realizes Seb isn’t beside him anymore. He jerks around, surprised.

Heart pounding, Chris swallows tight, and shrugs. “You would have said it already.”

The pavement under their feet turns sacred; a sudden sanctuary, holy ground. From now on, every time Chris is in this neighborhood, on this street- no matter how old he gets- whether he becomes forgetful or marries someone else or stops loving Seb- he will always remember this split second-

And the way Sebastian looks right at him-

and says, “No.”

It instantly, irreversibly, becomes part of their history together.

“Alright,” Chris manages, mouth dry.

He relents and looks away first. See you later, then, sunshine. 

Halfway down the block is when his feet start to get heavy; the cement starts to set. Adrenaline turns his legs to goo, and he lurches away, wondering if this is it, if Seb isn’t joking, if he really was being-

“Wait!” Seb laughs from far away, and then the sound of running steps. “Chris, wait.”

Chris turns around, breathless. “Change your mind?”

He grins and reaches out to grab Chris’s jacket. “No, I was lying earlier.”

“Oh,” Chris says, dumb, and then laughs as Seb raises his eyebrows and imitates his ‘oh.’


	9. IX.

AT GROUND LEVEL

“We’re going up,” Seb announces, leading Chris through the lobby, copper and chrome.

*

BETWEEN THE 4th AND 5th FLOORS

The instrumental, smooth jazz version of _Heroes_ makes Chris wrinkle his nose.

Seb lifts his head and smiles, and they catch each other’s gaze in the mirrored walls of the elevator. 

It’s just the two of them for infinity, a thousand versions that stretch on forever.

*

ON THE 32nd FLOOR

“Wow, Seb...” Chris whistles low as he follows Seb down the ornate, well-kept corridor.

Seb throws a pointed look back over his shoulder, and teases, “I’ve only lived here for two years.”

*

IN THE FRONT HALLWAY

“Do you want a drink?” is the first thing Seb asks.

Chris stands in front of the wall full of photos, matted frames stretched from floor to ceiling in a hundred different shapes and sizes.

“I’m alright,” he manages.

There’s fat chunky baby Seb. Seb’s mom, and Scarlett, and Margarita. Mackie, college friends, acting coaches and agents. There’s Bucky and Steve and Falcon.

But more than anyone else, there’s Chris. Chris in spades, like boxes full of paper Valentines, in pebbles and tulips and scripts. He spills from frame to frame - his face, his smile, his body. Parts of him and parts of him and parts of him.

In the frames where he is physically absent, Chris sees what he has left behind - with Seb - for safekeeping. A breadcrumb trail to find his way back again. The sweater Seb borrowed from his trailer on a cold night. That look on Seb’s face: it was Chris behind the camera that day. A flower Chris gave to Margarita in Leipzig. The wardrobe trailer interior, with Chris’s shield hanging beside one of Seb’s metal sleeves.

At the very end of the wall, there’s a new frame. Small but pretty, gold edged, recently hung. He hears Seb come back into the room.

“This was in Atlanta,” Chris says quietly, glancing over.

Seb stares back, eyes wide, expression meticulously neutral.

Chris looks back at the wall.

It’s a guy, young looking, with dark hair and shockingly brown eyes. The focus is a little off, this was taken in motion. He looks happy. Those are Seb’s sunglasses hanging off the collar of his stretched out t-shirt.

“That’s Xavier.” Seb looks at the picture, too. He sounds sentimental. “We met last year.”

Chris doesn’t see himself in this photo at all.

“Seb, I just kill time,” he admits, voice rough. Sometimes he wishes he had someone else. When he looks at Xavier, he wishes he could see anyone the way he sees Seb.

He turns his face away from Xavier’s cheeky, crooked smile.

“I know,” Seb says, surprised.

They watch each other nervously.

“I don’t-” The word cracks, and Chris cuts himself off. He clears his throat and looks at Seb, a little ashamed of himself. “The casual thing, I don’t…”

It’s always been a mystery to Chris. The first time he had sex, he cried on the drive home, told his mom the second he walked through the door, and made plans to marry the person when they turned 21. She went on a date with a different guy -- a not-him guy -- two weeks later.

“Chris,” Seb says quietly. He must see it all over Chris’s face, because he laughs, kind of. “It’s okay.”

He knows he’s panicking, but he can’t stop the strangled, “Is it?” that limps out of him.

“Chris,” Seb says quieter, moving closer. He looks right at him. “It’s okay.”

Chris lets out a nervous, shaky breath, and closes his eyes as Seb tugs him into a hug.

He’s waited around for Seb for so long it doesn’t feel right to finally be getting what he wants. They stand there, and Seb holds him purposely close, for a very long time. When Seb slides a hand up and into Chris’s hair, Chris’s eyes tear up.

He feels obvious, like a broken bone, sticking out in a way that doesn’t belong.

“Come on,” Seb says, smiling. “You can sleep in my bed this time.”

*

IN THE BATHROOM

Chris washes his hands under the copper faucet, and looks at all the bottles lined up along the marble.

Pieces of Seb he’s never seen before. He picks one up, hands soaking wet, and almost knocks two others over in the process. This one looks expensive. He puts it back down, turns off the tap, and reaches for a towel.

Seb’s given him a pair of basketball shorts to sleep in, but Chris leaves those folded on the bench. He looks at himself in the mirror instead, feeling like an idiot in his mustache and tight underwear, and then reaches for the door.

Like most nights spent at Chris’s rental in Atlanta, Seb has already got Netflix on, and is clicking through the _Late Night Buddies Comedy_ category. When he sees Chris standing in his underwear, he does a double take. Chris tries his best to keep his nervous hands at his sides as he crosses the room and gets into the side of the bed that is not Seb’s.

“Maybe some Clerks,” Chris suggests.

“Yeah,” Seb agrees. When he swallows, it looks like it hurts. He moves one hand down under the covers and blinks like an owl at the TV. “Maybe some Clerks.”

*

HALFWAY THROUGH THE MOVIE

Toes under the blanket. Calves, knees, thighs-

When Chris realizes he’s staring, he jerks his gaze away from Seb’s body like a dog on a leash.

“Blockbuster had the best food. I miss fruit snacks,” Seb sighs, sentimental. On screen there’s a black and white carousel of pepperoni sticks and gum sitting on the counter. He pauses. “And smoking.”

Chris snorts. “Fruit snacks are plentiful. And I have cigarettes in my jacket.”

“I tried to kiss a girl in a Blockbuster once, but she blocked me with a video case,” Seb continues dramatically, pointedly ignoring the offer, but making Chris laugh all the same. Seb grins when he notices Chris’s reaction. “It’s true! The Matrix. There was a whole wall of them.”

Still laughing, Chris rolls his eyes a little, and says, “That must have been difficult for you, sunshine.”

“She was just playing hard to get,” Seb replies, and Chris can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

*

AFTER THE CREDITS

It’s nice to get ready for bed with Seb in his orbit again.

The last time they did this, it was a comfort. Tonight, it’s something new.

“Here’s a charger,” Seb says softly, voice tired. It’s been a long day.

Chris smiles and takes the cord. One end goes into his phone, and the other goes into the plug behind Seb’s bedside table. There’s nothing on it, other than a lamp that matches the sink faucet-

-and now Chris’s phone as it vibrates against the marble top.

“Do you have to get up for anything?” Seb asks, and Chris shakes his head, and this has always been the problem with them, hasn’t it? Their friendship bubbled up into a platonic relationship of convenience, but fizzled out before it could get the momentum to be more.

How did anyone ever get what they wanted?

“No.” He thinks about how he’s sitting here, in Seb’s bed, with his bare legs in the sheets and just a pair of underwear on his body. He flexes his stomach muscles and waits for Seb to notice. “I don’t have anything.”

Seb rolls his yawn right into a happy noise, and starts to climb into bed.

“Good.” He props himself up on an elbow. “I was thinking I could make breakfast.”

Confused, Chris nods. “Sure,” but- _don’t you want me now, like this?_

But Seb only reaches for the lamp -- the last light on in the room -- and switches it off.

*

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

It’s still dark when Chris opens his eyes.

He blinks, a little dry in the skull from the booze, and tugs the sheets up over his bare shoulder.

Tired. He’s still very tired, but warm. Comfortable. His half-asleep brain registers how close Seb is, and as his eyes drift closed, he dreams about it in fits and starts, sleepy little fantasies that make him hard.

That’s why he wakes up the second time.

“Seb,” he says into the dark.

It’s quiet and he doesn’t expect an answer, but then the tip of Seb’s nose bumps against his delt.

He hesitates -- for a moment it feels like they both hesitate -- and then Chris feels the wet, warm press of Seb’s mouth against his skin. Seb kisses his shoulder blade, and then turns his face away to rest his stubbly cheek against the same spot.

Chris wants more. He wants that again. He leans back and angles his head towards Seb.

“You were making noises,” Seb says, voice rough, turned on. “In your sleep.”

Flushed, Chris tries to get a better look -- wants to figure out if Seb is joking or not, needs to know where Seb is keeping all that body in the dark -- but he whites out and groans when he feels Seb press his hips forward, dick hard and hot.

It’s such a surprise that Chris floods with adrenaline. This is it. He tries his best to lean back, so Seb can have more of him.

They kiss over Chris’s shoulder, and at first it’s just a press of lips but then Chris opens his mouth and all of a sudden the brakes are gone.

“You woke me up,” Seb continues, sucking his way down Chris’s jaw.

Out of breath, Chris reaches for his dick and admits, “Wet dream.”

Seb lets out a breath like a punch and buries his face in the back of Chris’s neck. Chris can feel the heat -- red cheeks, a sticky forehead -- and groans again as he feels the motions of Seb starting to jerk off, wrist knocking into the dip of Chris’s lower back.

“I’m gonna come on you,” Seb gasps, and Chris just nods, over and over, twisting his fingers into the pillow still under his head as he jerks off with his other hand.

He feels the flush from holding his breath creep up from his chest to his throat to his jaw, and he gasps loudly, letting out his breath, head tilting back as Seb starts to pant open-mouthed against his back.

When Seb comes, Chris feels it. Seb grabs onto him with one hand and holds his dick against Chris’s lower back with one palm as he fucks his orgasm out, letting out tiny little noises that Chris will never be able to get out of his head.

“Fuck,” Seb swears, still grinding, and Chris pants out a, “Yeah.”

He’s going to come, he knows he’s going to come, and he’s right in that painful, motionless second before it happens when Seb reaches for him. He grabs at Chris’s belly and his thigh, and Chris has a split second to think about that -- Seb pulling him and pushing him and fucking him every way he knows how-

Chris comes all over himself, and his underwear, and Seb’s very nice sheets.


	10. X.

NOW-

“It’s nothing suspicious,” Chris swears, a little offended. He dials back the tone in his voice, and holds both hands up, palms out. “It’s not like that at all.”

*

“All I’m saying is…” Seb has to recalibrate. He squints off into the distance, over Mackie’s head, and then finally looks back at him, and reviews, “It’s working out.”

*

“Don’t give Mackie your money,” Chris sighs, and -- pained -- tosses his napkin over his empty plate. He looks across the table, eyebrows tugged tight, forehead wrinkled. Scarlett watches back, serene. “What was the bet?”

*

“Listen, Mack, I appreciate the warning.” Seb can’t help the way his mouth keeps trying to curl up into a smile. He has to fight it, wrinkle his face up, sip his drink. “But it’s unnecessary.”

*

“Sure we can,” Chris grins. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come say hi on tumblr](http://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com)!
> 
> The title of this story comes from the song of the same name by [Talking Heads](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9gK2fOq4MY).
> 
> Kramer and Floyd are characters from Dazed and Confused.
> 
> For references used in this fic, [check out the tag on @thenavynumber](https://thenavynumber.tumblr.com/tagged/this%20must%20be%20the%20place) and on [my personal tumblr, @sidnihoudini](https://sidnihoudini.tumblr.com/tagged/this%20must%20be%20the%20place) :)
> 
> PS: I exceeded my post limit on tumblr >:( so I won't be able to post this there 'til later if anyone was wondering why it's only on ao3 right now haha.


	11. PLAYLIST

biffy clyro - strung to your ribcage  
 _you complete me / fucking say it_  
 _when you flirt it makes me nauseous / i’m fucking nauseous_

wolf parade - i’ll believe in anything  
 _we’ve both been very brave / walk around with both legs_  
 _but i’ll believe in anything_  
 _and you’ll believe in / anything_

panic at the disco - the end of all things  
 _whether near or far / i am always yours_  
 _any change in time / we are young again_

mavis staples - how many times  
 _how many times do you think_  
 _that i’ll come crawling_  
 _back again?_

auf der mar - taste you  
 _i will taste you_  
 _i’ve got a big mouth_  
 _i will taste you_

no doubt - simple kind of life  
 _now all those simple things are simply too complicated for my life_  
 _how'd I get so faithful to my freedom? / a selfish kind of life_  
 _when all I ever wanted was the simple things / a simple kind of life_

goldfrapp - number 1  
 _cause you're my number one / i'm like a dog to get you_  
 _i want it up and on / i'm like a dog to get you_

the national - i’ll still destroy you  
 _i swear you got a little bit taller since i saw you_  
 _i’ll still destroy you_  
 _it’s just the lights coming on_

lupe fiasco - sunshine  
 _she says that, “i’ve been waiting for you / and i know you been chasing me too_  
 _since they kidnapped me from a castle / i been thinking of you_  
 _i told a fire breathing dragon, “he bet not harm me”_  
 _or he be sorry when he meets my one man army”_

straylight run - we’ll never leave again  
 _and the photos will show_  
 _these moments were golden_  
 _we’ll never leave again_

miguel - waves (kacey musgraves remix)  
 _don’t stop, i wanna ride that wave_  
 _all night, i wanna ride that wave_  
 _gonna surf in it, baby_  
 _get turnt in it, baby_  
 _put work in it, baby_  
 _keep working it_  
 _while i ride that wave_

until the ribbon breaks - one way or another  
 _and i will / drive by your house_  
 _and / if / the lights are all down_  
 _then i’ll see / who’s around_

realiti - grimes  
 _when we were young, we used to live so close to it_  
 _and we were scared / and we were beautiful_  
 _oh / and i feel that nothing in life could ever be like this again_  
 _‘cause your love kept me alive / and made me insane_  
 _there were moments when it seemed okay / but i go back alone_  
 _to this moment / oh where do you stay? / i go back alone_

If anyone makes a Spotify playlist, let me know and I’ll share the link!!


End file.
